• 2024-03-25

8 productive tools for entrepreneurs and small business owners.

This article aims at identifying and explaining the 7 most important and productive tools every entrepreneur and small business owners should have in their day today activities from conception of a business idea to establishment and running of the business. The tools are as follows:

1. LegalEpp: This is an easy to use application that takes care of every legal need of entrepreneurs and small business owners; both personal and business related. Whether the business is at its incubation stage or it is established and running, LegalEpp has got you covered. Whether you want to incorporate your business, having compliance issues, draft documents, Review documents or need one-on-one consultation with a legal practitioner, you can sort all that with just a click on the app. All you need to do is visit the page and click the right buttons. There is no need to visit any physical office as you can access the best legal services from the comfort of your home or office with just your smart phone or laptop.
2. Slack: Effective communication cuts across all areas of life and entrepreneurs and small business owners too need effective communication tools to reach clients and team members easily. Slack as a platform has various channels, direct messaging and file-sharing capabilities that enables efficient collaboration with clients or remote teams. Basically, it consolidates all your communication in one easy-to-navigate place. This will save time and sources for business owners as communication with clients, partners and team members is made easier.
3. Zoom: This is a video conferencing tool for virtual meetings, webinars and screen sharing, that enables entrepreneurs to connect with clients or conduct remote presentations. This tool helps entrepreneurs to easily attend business related webinars and meetings and also enable them host such meetings and webinars to reach more persons. 
4. Evernote &  Calendly: These are also very important tools for entrepreneurs and business owners because while Evernote helps in note-taking and organization to help entrepreneurs capture ideas, save web articles and create to-do lists and providing a central hub for information management, Calendly syncs with calendars to enable entrepreneurs easily book meetings and appointments. Both tools have the relationship of butter and bread as Evernote can be used to take notes during meetings and appointments and also create a to-do list from such meetings while Calendly helps with reminders on the to-do lists, scheduled meetings, consulation calls and or coaching sessions. These great tools help entrepreneurs to remain self motivated and accountable to the growth and expansion of their businesses. 
5. Buffer: Whether you are selling products or rendering services, the importance of networking on social media cannot be over emphasized. Putting out social media posts/ contents on different platforms is a great way to get noticed and attract potential clients hence this tool helps in social media scheduling to plan, automate and analyze posts across multiple platforms.  This saves time and helps an entrepreneur or a small business owner to maintain a consistent online presence. 
6. LastPass: This tool is a password manager that securely stores login details to enable easy login across various platforms. This helps individuals and business owners save time in remembering and typing in their passwords each time theg wish to log into a platform they are registered in.  Because of the importance of data security, it is adviceable to use different and strong passwords (having a mix of words, characters and alphabets) for each website or application. That's why using a secure password management tool like Lastpass makes it easy to keep track of all passwords. 
7. Google Workplace: In today's fast paced world of technology and internet, every individual; both business owners and professionals rely on google workplade for one task or the other. These Google tools include:  Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Maps, Calendar etc. Google workplace tools are easy to use and someone can log in from different devices ( phone, laptop, desktop, tablet etc.). This makes work easier as one could be working from anywhere ie from the confort of his or her home, in traffic or while waiting for a meeting etc. 

I hope this article helped. As a small business owner or entrepreneur just starting out, consider these tools and use as many as possible. These and many other tools will help with business expansion, productivity, and help to minimise mistakes that could lead to losses.